A Fresh Start?

I am not unhappy to see the end of March. March in New England is often dreary and there are almost no holidays (St. Patrick’s Day is fun, but it doesn’t mean a day off for most people). This March was made all that much more interesting by the death of my laptop and primary work machine. One day it just started shutting down on its own. It started slowly, and finally reached a point where it wouldn’t stay on for more than a few minutes at a time.

Big Guy and I spent a lot of time trying to diagnose the problem to see if we could fix it… was it overheating? was a virus causing it to overload? was the memory bad? We couldn’t pin it down, so I started the involved process of trying to choose a new machine. Normally I reach a point where my laptop just can’t keep up with me any more, so I have plenty of time to shop for a new one. This time I felt pressured to get a new machine quickly before the only one took its last breath. I finally decided on a Sony Vaio, which wasn’t the most glamorous choice (compared to, say, a convertible ultrabook), but has some really good specs. I’ve learned that I do not like buying a new machine under pressure!

The other challenge? Work. All of my pictures and videos were on the old machine and, while I had backed them up, they weren’t readily available for me to use. I spent hours setting up a temporary machine with the software I needed while I waited for the new one to arrive. And now I’m in the midst of doing it all again. I am behind in everything… it’s so frustrating! And I suppose adding some extra snow days, early release days, and other hiccups hasn’t helped.

In any case, it is April 1st. And I’m back. I think it’s nose-to-the-grindstone time, though. I have a lot of catching up to do!